Creating a better and greener working environment

How Does EcoCooling Work ?

Celsius and EcoCooling have been working with data centres and server room equipment manufacturers to develop a modular system of cooling for retrofitting to existing facilities to provide energy efficient cooling. Comprehensive process controls maintain compliant temperatures together with all of the connectivity required for the secure and safe operation of the total package.

Traditional Data Centre Cooling

Computer Room Air Conditioners (CRACs) use a refrigeration system to cool air and pass it to the void under the raised floor.

EcoCooling Low Carbon Cooling Free Air System

An EcoCooling unit takes external air and passes it to the void under the raised floor. Below 18°C ambient air is taken and mixed with air re-circulated from the hot aisle. Above 21°C the EcoCooler uses evaporative cooling to provide air which never exceeds 22°C.

For the vast majority of the year the air in the UK is significantly below the ideal temperature of a Data Centre, there is a lot of 'free cooling' out there, so why don't we use it? Having studied the cumulative count of hours over 5 years (including 2003 with the record hot days) for UK weather conditions we see that it was only above 21C for 2448 hours which represents 4.9% of the time, so for 95.1% of the time it is below 21Co. We also see that the Wet Bulb Temperature of the air never went over 23C. For more information on weather data and to see just how cold it is in the UK and for how long please refer to data freely available at http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/stationdata/.

How are the savings achieved?

An EcoCooling free air system provides a constant flow of low carbon cooling, attemperated air between 18°C and 22°C. No refrigeration is used ' the air is cooled by evaporative cooling when ambient temperatures are high and is heated by recirculation of air from the server exhaust when the ambient temperature is low. No refrigeration is used as all of the cooling is achieved using evaporative cooling. This results in energy saving in excess of 90% compared with traditional Computer Room Air Conditioners (CRAC's)

Modern IT equipment is robust and has a typical environmental operating range of 10C to 35C and a humidity range from 20% to non-condensing. Close control refrigeration equipment is not necessary to maintain these conditions, low carbon cooling can be used if controlled correctly.

Manufacturers of typical Data Centre Cooling equipment have now expanded the safe operating zones for their equipment, as detailed below;-

Manufacturer

Model

Temp C

Humidity

IBM

eServer xSeries 225

Min 10 Max 30

8 – 80%

Dell

PowerEdge 4400

Min 10 Max 35

8% to 80%

non-condensing

Cisco

MXE 300

Min 10 Max 35

10% to 90%

non-condensing

HP

server rx4610

Min 5 Max 35

20% to 80%

non-condensing

It really is legacy thinking to keep Data Centres at 20Co when it is costing a fortune to maintain such low temperatures, even ASHRAE have recently moved their specification to reflect this increased reliability of the modern equipment in Data Centres, by increasing the temperature required to between to 18Co ' 27Co for Data Centre Cooling.ECPCREC – The EcoCooling Computer Room Evaporative Cooler is designed to meet the Data Centre cooling needs of modern IT equipment. This is a modular system based on the standard ECP EcoCooler incorporating a patented 'attemperation' system.Energy Efficient 'Attemperation' ' Using the warm air in the Data Centre to temper the cold incoming air in the winter.

System Design

The air flow required for the system is dependent upon the total IT load and the server design. Using a typical ÎT of 10C a single EcoCooling CREC can support a load of 35kW for Data Centre Cooling. The systems can be either fixed or variable flow.

The low energy air distribution system uses axial fans which can accommodate most applications. Where raised floors are used, the overall design, in particular the floor grill numbers and position, should reflect the pressure drops and rack cooling load density to achieve true low carbon cooling.

Most EcoCooling systems are controlled centrally. This allows fully automatic control and identification of any fault conditions.

Server and IT operating conditions

The following must be taken into account when providing an EcoCooling solution:

Temperature: In Europe an EcoCooling system can provide 100% Temperature compliance against the latest ASHRAE[1] standards and meet all manufacturer environmental specifications. Some early main frame systems require close control and evaporative cooling is not suitable.

Relative Humidity: In Europe an EcoCooling system can provide 99% compliance against ASRAE allowable conditions. Older equipment such as paper tape and magnetic tape systems are less tolerant and evaporative cooling is not suitable, in these increasing rare occurrences we can offer standard CRAC cooling, we will always offer the best solution for the application in looking for low carbon cooling.

Dust: The filter pads provide an adequate level of filtration for modern IT equipment with sealed bearings and closed drives, but additional higher efficiency EcoCooling wrap round filters can be provided if required.

Redundancy ' The required redundancy is met using the EcoCooling modular system.

The key benefits of using EcoCooling compared with conventional refrigeration based air conditioning are:

Cost

- Over 90% reduction in electricity usage

- Lower capital costs

- Lower maintenance costs

- EcoCooling systems qualify for Interest free loans from the Salix schemes, as they are low carbon cooling.

Engineering

- Low energy ventilation system

- Low cost spare parts holding

- No F gas compliance costs

- Simple technology

- Ability to cope with very hot days, the hotter the day the more efficient the EcoCooling unit.

- Allows release of available power for other activities

Operational

- External access for maintenance.

- No internal space used

- EcoCooling Modular system achieves required redundancy

- Simple expansion through modular design

Environmental Benefits

- No refrigerants

- Less than 10% of the carbon footprint of conventional air conditioning

Get in touch

Our Latest Jobs

Three years ago Celsius installed an EcoCooling Data centre cooling system for Aberystwyth Council at their Aberaron data centre, it worked that well delivering all the savings promised (over 80 tonnes of carbon per annum) as part of their carbon reduction program, therefore, when the cooling system in their main Data centre in their state of the art head office required a new back up system they approached us for our innovative solution.

Celsius have recently installed evaporative cooling systems for 6 Go Outdoors stores that suffered from severe summer overheating problems, the first was at Taunton and as this was so successful the Oxford store soon followed. The Celsius EcoCooling evaporative cooling approach has now been established as the Go Outdoor’s chosen solution for all of their stores, it fits in perfectly with their low carbon approach.